The Fine Art of Baby Wrangling

Theron turned seven months old yesterday. This
means, among other things, that I'll soon be
able to start giving his age in years instead of
months. (Anything that involves me not having to
do so much math is a welcome development.) The
predictions I made in the pre-Christmas entry
were a bit premature: Theron still can't quite
crawl. (Maybe the house wasn't crowded enough?)
On the other hand, he did have a wonderful time
chewing on the wrapping paper - so I was
half right.

The Podling has reached
an interesting intermediate stage in his
development: he's actually more interested in
trying to stand up than he is in trying to
crawl. Friends and family have assured us that
this is fairly normal, and doesn't mean that
he'll {gasp} bypass crawling altogether and go
straight to walking. A few of our friends have
pointed out even if he does, it isn't a very big
deal.* As far as I'm concerned, it's basically a
good thing. Now he doesn't have to spend all his
time being frustrated that he can't quite crawl;
he can spend his time being frustrated that he
can't stand up, instead.

Even so, he's
frighteningly mobile. He gets around using a
combination of wiggling, lunging, sitting up,
pulling himself forward with his elbows, and
grabbing anything handy to help himself along.
He's still better at going backwards than he is
at going forward, but he can make progress by
changing directions and wriggling sideways
before rotating again - sort of like tacking a
sailboat. His current game is to move towards
one of us and try to climb us. I think he does
this because he knows we'll pull him up to a
standing position.

To understand why I
find this development terrifying, you have to
add two other factors into the equation. First,
he has absolutely no regard for his personal
survival. And, second, like all babies he has an
instinctive knack for heading towards whatever
(item or area) his parents least want him
exposed to. So, after the third time he
unplugged the television, we made an emergency
run to Toys'R'Us and purchased a plastic baby
fence. We've been using it as a corral while we
finish baby-proofing the living room. The
Podling is no longer just "the Podling." We've
started calling him "The Juggernaut" as well.

He has also developed a
deep, strong love for the cats and an ardent
desire to pet them. As a result of his newfound
mobility, the kitties are very careful
about how closely they approach him. They live
in fear of the day when he can crawl - or toddle
- and thereby seek them out in their places of
refuge.

He's had his rice
cereal. Is it time for citrus fruits yet? A couple of days ago we set the Podling in a
foam-rubber chair on top of the kitchen table
while we ate dinner. (This was not as dangerous
as it might sound; the chair keeps him fairly
well anchored, and so far he's shown no ability
to get out of it. That's not to say he hasn't
tried.)

Being unable to move,
he immediately fell back on his second favorite
activity: trying to grab things. I thought we'd
cleared a wide enough circle around him, and in
the event he wasn't able to pull over our water
glasses or stick his pudgy little hands in our
food. Instead he used his Kung Fu Snake Arm
Technique
to reach out and grab the fruit bowl. The fruit
bowl was, at the time, full of oranges.

So we watched in
bemusement as he rummaged around in the oranges
until he found one that was small enough and
squishy enough that he could get a one-handed
grip on it. He promptly took it out and stuck it
in his mouth. Being the conscientious, caring
individual that I am, I knew there was only one
responsible way to handle this situation: I made
a run for the camera.

1. Baby picks
up orange and puts it in his mouth.

2. Baby
explores interesting new texture.

3. Baby uses
his rodent-like teeth to take a bite

4. Baby
recoils in disgust.

5. Baby
considers, but remains disgusted.

6. Baby places
the gnawed-upon orange back in the
bowl.

7. Mommy comes
to the rescue with a cleansing glass
of water.

8. Daddy gets
photographic evidence of baby-chewed
orange.

My toy is now a hatTheron received quite a number of toys for
Christmas. He's had a wonderful time playing
with them, and crawling on them, and tipping
them over. Needless to say, much of what he does
to them has little in common with what they were
actually designed for. So, in an attempt to get
into the spirit of finding creative new uses for
the Juggernaut's toys, I decided to make him a
hat.

I don't mean that I
turned the baby into a hat and wore him around,
though I've done that too. No, I decided that
the baby needed a hat, and borrow pieces from
one of his toys to make one. I mention this
mainly because the results were unbelievably
cute. Not that I'm biased, or anything.

*The concern is that
learning to crawl is - or was - thought to be
important for neurological development. This has
apparently been debunked in recent years, with
the exception of a few studies that link a lack
of crawling with dyslexia. Given his genetic
heritage, he's got at least a fifty-fifty chance
of being dyslexic anyway, so who cares?